Chapter 64: Chapter 64

Aberrant Beasts were not ordinary wild beasts. Regarding the origin of Aberrant Beasts, there were primarily two prevailing legends in the outside world:

One suggested that Aberrant Beasts might be mutated ancient demonic beasts, which was deduced from the perspective of their physical constitutions.

The other legend was related to wizards, claiming that Aberrant Beasts were the byproducts of failed wizard experiments, deduced from the locations where these beasts appeared.

Morris was more inclined to believe the latter, because after learning of this second legend, the territory had organized exploration squads to venture deep into the Qiumu Forest in the south, eventually finding a location suspected to be wizard ruins.

Morris’s squad was among the discoverers at that time.

However, Morris also felt that the first legend wasn’t entirely impossible. The physiques of these Aberrant Beasts were simply too powerful; at the very least, none of the Knights he knew or had heard of could compare.

…

“Swish!”

A flash of dark light swept past, and the nine-headed monster became one with eight and a half heads. Morris dodged the filthy blood splattering from the monster’s severed head, spun around, and delivered another sword strike.

This slash went straight for one of the Aberrant Beast’s left legs. As the blade swept past, there was a momentary resistance, but it still resolutely broke through the obstruction.

Subsequently, Morris swiftly shifted his figure, darting toward the Aberrant Beast’s back, but in the next moment, an accident occurred:

One of the Aberrant Beast’s originally drooping tails instantly snapped upward, unexpectedly winding toward the blade of Morris’s longsword, which was running low on momentum. The tip of the tail was none other than a nameless, triangle-headed venomous snake.

“It really is the same old trick!”

Although Morris himself had never experienced this exact scenario, he had long since heard of the various mutated forms of Aberrant Beasts from others in the Territory Guard. A tail turning into a venomous snake was merely one of them.

Let alone turning into a venomous snake, even growing a new head wouldn’t be surprising.

However, the timing of the Aberrant Beast’s counterattack was quite clever. Morris’s body still carried his forward momentum, but because his longsword had just exhausted its sword momentum to sever the beast’s left leg, it was currently in the stage of building up momentum anew.

To think that even this momentary weakness could be caught by the Aberrant Beast.

At this moment, Morris instinctively wanted to activate his Transcendent Weapon according to his usual combat habits, but remembering that he needed to rely on this life-and-death duel to grasp transcendent intuition…

His hand movements couldn’t help but slow down by half a beat. In the next moment, the snake that had already coiled around the blade opened its jaws wide and lunged toward Morris’s sword-wielding right hand.

In an instant, the beating of Morris’s heart suddenly accelerated. The next moment, a surge of new power welled up from within him out of nowhere, allowing him to wrench his sword free and, while moving, evade the attacks from the Aberrant Beast’s other two tails.

“No, my thinking was still off!”

While skirmishing, Morris reflected on his reaction just now. He shouldn’t have stimulated his Life Seed; instead, he should have followed his subconscious intuition to activate the Transcendent Weapon!

The latter’s consumption was indeed greater, but he could have also used the leverage to sever that venomous snake tail.

This wouldn’t have drastically improved his combat situation at his current stage, but in the long run, it would have forced the Aberrant Beast to expend more energy, thereby accumulating an advantage for his ultimate victory.

His habitual actions were essentially the results of long-term training, and one of the principles of training was to achieve the greatest combat results at the minimum cost.

However, Morris wasn’t necessarily able to fully comprehend the true meaning of his daily training. If he could have understood it, perhaps he would have become a Senior Knight long ago.

…

After that one mistake, Morris’s subsequent movements became considerably more cautious. Every single step he took often required repeated verification.

As the battle continued, the original nine-headed monster had transformed into a massive ball of flesh covered in numerous tentacles. This was a Combat Form that most Aberrant Beasts were prone to mutating into after prolonged combat.

The surface of the flesh ball was covered in thick hide, and atop the thick hide grew feathers. This level of defense could not be broken by anything other than a Transcendent Weapon.

As for those tentacles, they resembled flexible tongues, but they were covered in sharp fangs and teeth. The wet, glistening substance on their surfaces wasn’t saliva, but venom.

“Captain, do you need our help?”

Garrick stared anxiously at the center of the clearing, where Morris was skirmishing around the Aberrant Beast. At first glance, it certainly seemed like Morris was maintaining a sustained skirmish, but from another perspective, wasn’t he being forced by the Aberrant Beast to scramble desperately in all directions?

Everyone present had experience fighting Aberrant Beasts, and normally, very few battles reached this extent.

Once an Aberrant Beast mutated into a form more suited for combat, the Knights would have to pay several times the price they would have at the beginning to slay it.

And most crucially, no one knew if the Aberrant Beast would become even more difficult to deal with if the battle continued!

…

Seemingly realizing that his comrades were about to join the battle, Morris couldn’t help but feel anxious. He roared loudly to those behind him:

“Don’t come in yet! I can still do this, trust me! Give me two more minutes!”

Were two minutes enough to kill this Aberrant Beast that had already been stimulated into mutating into its Combat Form?

Of course not!

But if it was just for comprehending transcendent intuition, as long as he found the right opportunity, a single second would suffice. Two minutes was merely the final deadline Morris had set for himself.

He understood that if he dragged it out any longer, this Aberrant Beast would very likely become more than their squad could handle.

At this moment, Morris’s emotions, which had grown heated from the previous battle, calmed down once more. He told himself in his heart, “I can definitely do this!”

With a casual swing of his sword, he deflected a lunging tentacle, while simultaneously accelerating his footwork, successively dodging several tentacles that stabbed straight toward his vital points.

Occasionally, he even had to roll across the ground, which was already littered with severed tentacles. If he hadn’t been wearing armor, the sharp fangs and teeth on the Aberrant Beast’s severed tentacles would have pierced his body from such movements alone.

Just like this, time passed bit by bit, and Morris’s movements grew increasingly ragged.

However, his seemingly ragged movements were, in reality, devoid of any excess, as if undergoing incredibly precise calculations as he constantly wove through the Aberrant Beast’s ceaselessly thrashing and stabbing tentacles.

At this moment, almost all of Morris’s thoughts were concentrated on the longsword in his hands. At this moment, he could even see the tip of the sword emitting a sharp gleam.

In the next moment, the light spread, rapidly sweeping across Morris’s entire body. At this moment, it was as if he had been struck by lightning, and his entire consciousness scattered outward.

Yet, this scattering of consciousness did not subject him to external contamination. In reality, far from scattering, his consciousness became even more condensed. This change allowed his perception to completely transcend his physical body, permeating the space between the battlefield.

At this moment, everything was within his perception: the Aberrant Beast ceaselessly waving its tentacles before him, the various severed tentacles on the ground, the shattered Qiumu branches, the dirt churned up by the battle, and even his teammates behind him, along with their worried or tense facial expressions.

Everything within a radius of about twenty steps was entirely within his perception.

“I understand, I understand it all!”

Nothing brought a more profound understanding than personal experience. At this moment, Morris finally acquired the transcendent intuition he had been yearning for, or rather, Transcendent Perception.

Some things couldn’t be figured out no matter how much one fantasized about them without having experienced them. But as long as one experienced it once, just once, it was enough to grant an enlightenment that others could hardly hope to match.

It was just that for Morris at this moment, although he had seen through the secret to becoming a Senior Knight, his physical enhancement couldn’t possibly catch up in such a short amount of time.

In other words, Morris could indeed be considered a Senior Knight now, but he was the weakest kind.

Relying solely on his current self was still not enough to defeat the Aberrant Beast that had mutated into its Combat Form. He urgently needed his teammates’ help.

Thus, Morris shouted loudly:

“Garrick, make your move!”